Lilacs

Day 2094

There is a lovely county park on the southern side of Rochester. Highland Park is the home of a Cornell University Co-op Extension (THE Cornell U.), the old Ellwanger nursery, a water reservoir, the Highland Bowl (a sort of natural amphitheater) and dozens if not hundreds of Lilacs and all sorts of other botanical specimens.

Locally, the first festival of the year is the Lilac Festival, held at this park, usually coinciding with the bloom of the lilac bushes. For the first time in my 40+++ years here, we took in the festival this weekend. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t get the email this year and allowed the lilacs to bloom about 2 weeks early. There were a few late bloomers still hanging on, but for the most part, the lilacs were well past peak.

No matter though. There was an arts & crafts show (more craft than art), tons of free music and all the great overpriced festival type food you could want. 10,000 Maniacs played Saturday night, Rita Coolidge headlined Sunday night and there are several more top notch acts lined up for next weekend. On top of that, we also had Alan Jackson in town this weekend. Quite the weekend to be hanging out in Rochester. So we did.

It looks like the painful couple evenings of discussions we had last week are starting to pay some dividends. There are still some lingering questions, and dinner Saturday night did nothing to clear any of that up. It’s hard to have dinner at the Dinosaur and not enjoy a fine draft or two. If you’re from the east coast area, you MAY have a chance to try Lake Placid Brewery Ubu Ale. If you like dark beers, you need to try this one. If you want to try it, but they don’t sell it near you, then you need to visit.

Saturday’s weather was a little dicey – 50’s, cloudy, bit of a breeze. No rain though, so it wasn’t a horrible day to be traipsing through the festival. Sunday’s weather was drop dead gorgeous. At least for these parts. Temps in the high 60’s to low 70’s, crystal clear blue sky and just a faint wisp of a breeze.

We’d seen something at the festival Saturday and had to check out some stuff at the house before we committed. So Sunday morning I did a little survey down in the basement. Sadly, our electrical situation was worse than I remembered. Our electrical panel is 45 years old and shows it. For years we’ve been saying that we needed to upgrade our electric supply. Now, we have the perfect opportunity. Before the big surprise (and the real enticement for that invitation I left dangling above) we’re going to get our 45 year old 60 amp electrical service goosed a bit. To like 200 Amps.

We have some electricians coming by to work on quotes, and we’re going to include site preparation for something we’ve been thinking about for a few years. Could make for a very interesting summer.